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Simcha Perlmutter

1900
—Horochow, Poland

Simcha was one of six children born to a Jewish family in the town of Horochow. His father was a Hebrew teacher. Simcha was an excellent student and after studying at universities in Switzerland, France, and Germany, he became a philosophy professor at the university in Lvov. In the early 1920s he married, and by 1929 he and his wife, Fruma, had two daughters, Tchiya and Shulamit.

1933-39: Simcha was a Zionist and throughout the 1930s he encouraged his Jewish students to emigrate to Palestine [Aliyah Bet], illegal immigration, especially after the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. In September 1939, as Simcha was arranging for his family to emigrate, Germany invaded Poland. Three weeks later the Soviet Union [as a result of the Nazi-Soviet Pact] occupied eastern Poland, where Horochow was located. Despite the Soviet occupation, Simcha continued to teach at the university.

1940-41: In June 1941 Germany invaded Soviet territory and soon reached Horochow. As a Jew and intellectual, Simcha was a target for harassment by the German occupation forces. About a week after reaching Horochow, German soldiers came to the Perlmutters' home. Simcha saw them coming and tried to escape out the back door, but Ukrainian guards were stationed there and arrested him as he emerged from the house. Simcha was deported with many of Horochow's prominent citizens.

Simcha's family never saw him again. They believe that he may have been taken to the Dachau concentration camp or taken outside Horochow and shot.